The Collective at the West Bank Gallery.

bloody hell! Something worth going to see in a Notting hill gallery.

A group show running for a very short time (until the 7th) featuring some surprisingly good stuff. go and catch it.

I loved the organic forms of Kate Linforth:

Serene, understated ceramics by Maria Dehaan are both Beautiful and functional.

kim Francis makes almost indescribable fragile objects of great beauty. Faberge made accessible.

WEST BANK GALLERY is at133 Westbourne Grove W11.  look it is pissing with rain, there could be no better way of escaping it! Prices are realistic too and for once it is not 'faddish' ephemeral tosh.

Arty Self portrait.

Cardiff harp

Pop corn shop on Blenheim Crescent W11. The dumbing down of Portobello continues!

Yes! it is a popcorn shop, they sell popcorn, nothing else but popcorn. How on earth can a popcorn shop survive in an area of escalating rents?

Review: http://jannieupjur.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/corn-in-portobello-pop-goes-your-money.html

The Pelican, Tavistock Road W11 is reopening on saturday 6th of October.

After some considerable time closed following a rather checkered history the Pelican is finally reopening its doors! It will be interesting to see how it goes; the new owners appear to have spent a considerable amount of money on the buildings interior which indicates that they may want to keep the usual suspects out.

In the light of what is happening generally to our local pubs lets hope the Pelican maintains some standards!

The new owner showed me around the other day and was keen to assure me that it was not attempting to be some kind of gastro pub but something that might resemble a PUB!

Opening on the 6th at 6,00 pm... worth a look anyway.

Tate Modern Christmas gift ideas 2012.

I have had a sneaky peep at the following... Nothing new then!


Tate Modern Christmas gifts 2012


Banksy grafitti kit complete with stencls, spraycans, balaclava and false balls.

Gilbert and George Rococo shit embellisher. Containing resin and gold leaf for the perfect ormolu stool. (Shit not provided but may be bought separately from the Tate gift shop in handy 30g tins. Price: £97,250.00 courtesey of  Piero Manzoni)

Tracy Emin camping condoms. Signed by the artist for authentic artistic fucking intent.

The 'LOOK AT ME' Nicholas Serota mirror... Just repeat after me; If I say it is art it is ART! (This gift works well with Last years 'Emperors new clothing' Curators costume.)

Chapman brother faced false penis noses (set of two). Now you and your brother can look like a pair of dickheads.

The 'Munch Scream' cot and buggy mobile. Ideal for disturbing the very young artist.

Andy Warhol bald patch. Impress your friends with your impersonation of Andy without a wig!

Warhol without wig: http://jannieupjur.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/club-21-remaking-scene.html

The 'Jackson Pollock' Muse beater. An authentic paint spattered singlet ideal for the 'Abstract Depressionist*' during alcoholic rages. Works equally well on long suffering wives/boyfriends.

The Damian Hirst animal mutilation starter set has been withdrawn due to legal issues... It was rubbish and overpriced anyway! 



*Abstract Depressionism: Copyright. Jan Nieupjur 2009. http://jannieupjur.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/barking-on-thin-ice-in-search-of.html

Midge Ure gets a custard pie.

Or was it a Viennese whirl?

Jeremy Forrest and Megan. Why the French are not treating it seriously.

French correspondent Gaspard Disdain writes:

The raison zat ze French is not taking zis serious is zat it is a matter of love and we French know all about love. Not like you English Island stealers.

They are a young couple in love and deserve to be together, how does it matter zat he is a married teacher with moral responsibilities and she is a child (I know that makes him a paedophile but so what) it is obvious zat she is in love with ze ansome brute. You only ave to look at the way e dresses to see he is a babe magnet. And on top of zat, being a maths teacher, he can help her count ze ways she loves him.

Come on England, do the mathematique, put deux at deux togezeur and come up wiz two happy lovers.

We French may run from a fight but we run to ze hanky panky faster than your Widow Twanky.

Give zem a break.... Call it half term!   Zut alors!


Editors note: Gaspards views are his own and being a Frenchie are invariably wrong.

On a slightly disgusted note I gather the tabloids are offering loads of cash for topless photos of Megan! I'd like to see some saggy dugged photos of  themselves for a change. Tell you what, send me your photo's and I'll publish them!

UPDATE. 27th September.

As a direct result of this blog French police have pulled out their collective finger and found the couple in Bordeaux. He is is in police custody while she is probably in 'le Price Unique'.

Sussex police issued a statement saying the pair were "safe and well".

"The information which led to them being located came as a direct result of media coverage in France," the statement said. "At this stage we are not confirming the specific location where they were found. Their families have been informed and arrangements will now be made for Megan and Jeremy's safe return."

Ryan O'Reilly has the last word on Portobello Road and RBKC.

Portobello drinkers 'harassed' by children

From our sports correspondent Dave 'the Mexican' Wave. As usual his view are his own and of a 'tabloid' nature.

Things are coming to a head in Portobello Green, Notting Hill. Members of the Portobello serious drinking team are claiming that they are being harassed by a pingpongist terrorist group who's members include children as young as five years old. According to a spokesperson from the drinking team; " We are fucking being fucking chased off our fucking drinking table in the fucking park by a bunch of fucking antisocial table fucking tennis fanatics".

Portobello 'drinking' team on the disputed table.






From the other side of the fence a local pingponger stated: "It is ridiculous! this is a table tennis table not a drinks table. There are drinking places all over the place but only this one table tennis table".

'Terrorists' at play! 











The drinkers went on to complain that sport is an elitist activity which should be discouraged now the olympics are over. One stated: "Sporting activities in this neighbourhood give a false picture of what is essentially a shithole  left to accommodate us drinkers, crack heads, junkies and such by RBKC while they gentrify the rest of the borough for coke snorting tax avoiders and the like.

Rumours however of royal personages getting their kit off in the park are unfounded.

The artificial hip. For all you Hoxton Hipsters out there!

I was really pleased that I managed to get 8 Z's into one line. Cool or what!

He's the prosthetic aesthetic
the artificial hip
the coolest thing to hit the town
since granny took a trip.
He is the London Fields creative
the Hoxton neo-native
the ultimate self-oblative
hip hip hip hip hip.

He is ironically moustachio'd
wearing comical pistachio
drainpipe trousers  and a pork pie hat
He knows full well
 that he's not where it is 
if he's not where it's at
He is the pastiche fantastiche
is cooldom uber alles
likes erzatz Piazzolla pizza jazz
and avant garde French ballets.

He is he is he is he is
he is he is
he is

Hip hip hip hip hip hooray.

He is he is he is.

Portobello postcards # 176. Tony the key man.

Drug dealer starter kit and the jeweller to the stars

I found this on the interweb, the perfect Christmas gift for the children of our times.

The jeweller to the stars.

They are waiting in the cafes
the restaurants and bars
or parked on unlit corners
in expensive cars
they are waiting for the snowman, the blow man, the let's go man
they are waiting, waiting, waiting
for the jeweller to the stars.

He is the closest thing to royalty
their business is all his
with his bags of herbert sherbert
(the silly rich mans whizz)
he makes them feel quite special
and just a
little
bit
show biz
they are guaranteed to talk the talk
walk the walk as well
he is the pied piper
the piper at the gates of hell.

White christmas is his ringtone
on his prepay mobile phone
his sole visible means of support
the long suffering wife at home
he is the king of the powder rooms
his shit it smells of roses
to the vacuous trustafarians
born
with
silver spoons up their noses.

He is known to each and every one
the jeweller to the stars
he hasn't got a friend on earth
and there ain't no life on mars.

That clown Shapps, Cameron and drugs.

There is Grant Shapps: Tory party chairman, snake oil salesman, conman, manipulator of the truth. And then there is Andre Shapps: Guitarist with the Rotten Hill Gang, frequently seen in the neighbourhood sporting an extravagant moustache, striped blazer and bowler hat riding a unicycle.

Andre Shapps, musician and unicyclist.


The clown is of course the former and perfectly fitting to the circus that the government has become.

Grant Shapps, clown!


Is Cameron on drugs or just mad?

RBKC's half million pound piss hole on Portobello Road

A guest blog from Jan Nieupjur. As usual his views are his own


I've talked about what RBKC call portobello square before; http://jannieupjur.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/half-million-pound-loo-seat-on.html  they have built a half million pound lavatory (in Tavistock Road) from wildly expensive Chinese granite and stupid granite balls and put a seat round the tree by the lavatory. It has all become clear... The aim of RBKC is to contain the borough's drunks and junkies in the square in order to keep them from the posh bits rich gits live in; rich gits like RBKC councillors who have lined their pockets creaming off tax payers money.

The great little corner shop at the end of Tavistock Road is now a down market alcohol shop intending to capitalise on the drinking scum on the bench. The great little corner shop is run by Muslims (I thought they didn't do alcopops or diamond white ( I'm not being racist...Just curious)); nice people but driven by greed, who will no longer get my business because I can no longer buy stationery or a ball of string there and I am abused by the pissed up customers! They also advertise whores in the window (curious (http://jannieupjur.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/love-blossoms-on-portobello-road.html))

Come on RBKC, you are turning the place into a shit hole!

Drunks drinking drinks in order to get drunk. When drunk or drinking they drunkenly bully the community. Camorons 'big society' in action!  Photo: Jan Nieupjur.

A much better idea is to walk up Portobello 100 yards to the Continental Stores just re-opened on the corner.... A proper corner shop!

FEAR AND LOATHING IN PORTOBELLO GREEN and the 2012 Team GB drinking squad.

PORTOBELLO GREEN. Sounds idyllic doesn't it. sadly it is far from that at present!

Portobello Green is a small park area adjacent to Portobello road where it passes under the Westway, it is managed by Westway  Development trust. So far so good. WDT have very thoughtfully put a table tennis table in the park to be used by anyone with a mind to, it is also an ideal place to take children to play. The park is designated as alcohol and dog free with the threat of fines for transgressors. Great!

Sadly the park is the chosen meeting point for the areas collection of street drinkers (and worse) making it a no go zone for children or families, basically WDT is obliged to maintain this lovely little spot as an enclave for piss heads, pot heads and crack heads along with their dogs and threatening attitude to anyone who has the temerity to move them on!

Team GB drinking squad.


This is not Westways fault. Westways role is not that of a branch of Social Services nor the Police, nor are they supposed to be managing a pisshead creche for RBKC who seem to be happy to pass on the resposibility for their lack of responsibility regarding their socially marginalised residents! How the Council can believe that it is socially acceptable to have this situation continue is beyond me!

Perhaps RBKC could build a 'Cannery Row' themed area somewhere else, infusing it with Steinbeck's characters in order to create a comfortable environment for the drink/drug/dog on string element who currently cause the park to be a no go area for ordinary folk and their children. I'm sure that tourists would happily pay to gawk at a real piece of London 2012 and the GB serious drinking team now that the Olympics have gone. It would also be an opportunity for RBKC to generate income from the sale of Special Brew, crack and ganja within the area.

Come on 'Royal Borough' sort your shit out!

Gill bradley. Portraits of Portobello.

Coming to the Tabernacle in October.

Muse with harp.

Postcards from Portobello Road #1918: Gassed on All Saints Road.

My grandfathers generation were obliged to join the army and travel to the Somme in order to 'do a little gas', these days one can get that 'in the trenches' vibe on All Saints Road!

Evolution by Edgar Muller in Tavistock Road. NOT Portobello Square!

We are being bullied, by RBKC, into calling the Portobello end of Tavistock Road Portobello Square! What touristic bollocks... It is Tavistock Road.

Below is the rendering of what Edgar Mullers thing is going to look like... They don't tell you that you will have to look through a lens to get it but that would spoil the notion that it is an interactive street art thingy in which visitors may place themselves strategically within.

It is part of the 'INTRANSIT'  Festival running in the borough from the 13th to 27th of July. More HERE

I am photographing the creation of this thing over the next few days.

 Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4. hope it ain't water based paint!

Eventually it looks like this.



















But if you look through the little lens it looks like this!

Hmmmm. Waste of time and money really.

The Guardian, racism and negative stereotyping. Flooding in Wales!

I'm not posting a photo for this item for obvious reasons. But then I found this from SKY news:

There has been some flooding in Wales recently. A very good friend of mine has family in the worst hit area. I checked out the guardian online site for news and I was offered a collection of pictures to view.

I was offered 10 recent photographs of the flooding... I was show 8 photographs of flooded caravan sites and two of flooded roads. No devastated villages, no houses, no bruised communities, just caravan sites!

What does that tell us? It tells us that the gooood people at the guardian consider wales to be a land of caravan parks and nothing else. Obviously in Guardian land Wales is infra dig and without any true culture other than caravans.

The Guardian even made up captions for anonymous caravan parks, placing them in villages that do not have such things.

Perhaps the guardian editors and hacks are celebrating the rains as a means of dousing the fires in their holiday homes.

While we are on the subject it might be a good idea to return the Hay festival to the Welsh people and send the brit/pseudobrit literary wankers back to their tin foil barbecues at their poncy self indulgent literary onanist do's at bankrupt (financial and moral) country estates.

The Guardian used to be better than this.

Historical note: the guardian used to be the Manchester guardian. The majority of middle class Mancunians (and Liverpudlians) spend their holidays blighting Wales with their caravans (a caravan is the height of chic up there I'm told) and it is a known fact that most posh Mancunians are conceived in a caravan in Rhyll... Conception of course follows seven pints of llagwr and a cwrry! Really really posh Mancunians buy a holiday cottage near their caravan which they then burn down themselves for the insurance

Grace Jones, Jubilee and hula hoop!

Whatever you think of the royal familee, monarchy, the jubilee or Fergie's versus Pippa's bum the whole thing was worth it for this:


God bless you maam!

Post Abstract Vorticism and the way forward.

A guest blog by Jan Nieupjur.


Editors note: As usual Jan and I don't see eye to eye and I don't really go along with this.

Thank god! We can wave a hearty good bye to hirstian 'Brit Art' posturing and Banksy 'psuedo street' commercialism. I have seen the future of Art and it is Post Abstract Vorticism. A style most perfectly demonstrated in the work of the young Lithuanian 'Smith'!

Caligula at the Coliseum. Madness, bonking madness but brilliant!

To the Coleseum this morning with Mr Pounce the barrister to see the dress rehearsal of the ENO production of Caligula.

Bloody hell!

Fantastic set, minimalist if you didn't count the 301 seats on the terrace facing the audience... But brilliant in that the action back stage happened up high and with equal importance (if you are up in the gods). An almost vertical stage in fact.

Mad music and mad libretto skittered around madness illustrated by multiple pinoccios, panda bears, dancing girls, gun toting yes men, the naked rendition of Caligulas dead sister, men in suits and bonkers, bonkers... well bonking or the product of bonkers bonking.

The music out of context would be impossible. Modern I suppose in that it wasn't waltzes and the like. You knew from the moment it started that no fat woman was going to be singing this one out.... It weren't going to be over until the dead woman sang and sang beautifully as Caligula strangled her.

Throughout the performance the ghost of the sister wanders naked around the place, Wagnarians would be disappointed; she is a slip of a lass. As far as naked wandering goes the girl has it all, she is a star, you could ditch the singers and the band completely and still have a show. In the second half she wandered naked whilst painted gold. Who said opera was boring... Loyd Webber could make a whole show out of the poor girl doomed to walk the stage of the Coliseum naked, night after night, without the offer of even a cardigan to keep the chill at bay.

Caligula died at the hands of a mob of hoodied thugs on the terraces after having dragged both Mr Pounce and myself through his madness.

It was interesting to note that, at the end, the non-singing, non talking, naked lass got the loudest applause...

I for one enjoyed the thing immensely.

Bianca Jagger 'assaulted' at the opera.

What a farce!

I nicked this photo from the guardian, if you squint hard you can make out the photo-credit in the text at the bottom.



Bianca Jagger was at the Barbican for a performance of Phillip Glass's bonkers five hour, abstract opera Einstein on the Beach. She took a couple of photographs during the curtain call which apparently pissed off some bloke called Mark Shenton (Sunday Express theatre critic) who then proceeded to cause a scene during which, according to Bianca, he assaulted her. Shame on him.

In the first place Ms Jagger (who not only had to put up with being married to the pop crooner Mick but also has worked tirelessly for human rights) should be allowed to do as she pleases, especially at the opera. Secondly, this Shenton character would probably have applauded her had she been photographing him for her scrap book of theatre 'greats'. He obviously was affected by the roar of the grease paint, the smell of the crowd and the heady  essence of modern opera, which to my way of thinking is probably a bit too rich for the likes of him and his down market rag.

Shenton is quoted in the guardian as saying: "There are clearly no rules anymore. There is clearly civil breakdown in the theatre."... For fuck's sake man! Lighten up. It's modern innit!

To my mind there is clearly a mental breakdown in that particular theatre.

Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Paloma Faith, Torrents of spring and John Gordons.

What are Bank holiday Mondays for if not for driving through torrential rain for two hours in order to trudge about a rain sodden field drinking expensive beer, eyeing up dodgy merchandise and fast food, listening to  seriously un-jazz, in the free music tent while waiting for a Paloma Faith gig in the circus big top!                                                                             

A hardy festival goer in the packed beer tent!


The Paloma Faith thing was sold out but I sat through the sound check which was interesting. I spent the rest of the evening drenched, looking around the town before stumbling into the high point of my day: a Cafe/bar/wine & spirit merchants called John Gordons... What a lovely little place it is too, just a few tables set in a fairly compact shop in Montpellier Arcade (utterly refreshing to find in a town now seemingly dedicated to the mediocre and in obvious thrall to the lowest common denominator) run by very friendly and helpful people. If you ever visit Cheltenham make sure you visit this place.

www.johngordons.co.uk

While enjoying a beer and buying a bottle of red for the muse I got chatting to a number of 'walk-outs' from the Paloma Faith thing. The general feeling was: 'What the hell did that have to do with Jazz?'

The answer to that of course is: 'Nothing'!

Love blossoms on Portobello Road.

The following cards were spotted in a corner shop window on Portobello Road. I am particularly taken by the honesty of the second one although it strikes me as being a little on the risky side!

Sam Birch at the Tabernacle, CODE FC everywhere else and arguing with Nicholas Serota!

To the Tabernacle ( I haven't been there for a while) to have a look at Sam Birch's maps: THE HEART OF THE CITY | RECENT WORKS BY SAM BIRCH | PRIVATE VIEW. I like maps, Sams work is not great Art but it is good and thought provoking.  Great to see some old friends and great to receive such a warm welcome from the Tabernacle staff.

On the way home I met a guy putting up stickers here and there, turns out he is 'CODE FC'; a graffiti artist who's work I have seen over the years in the neighbourhood' I have some of his stuff at home. We had a brief chat about streeet art and stuff. He wasn't a vandal or a hoodied thug. Nice guy. Invited me to his private view in June. Go and have a look.

'But is it art' I hear you say. 'Fucking right if the artist says so'. Says Nicholas Serota! Who can argue with that! I have heard that Mrs Serota occasionally argues with Nicholas but not about art.

Naked Italian painters hit London!

Hourly rates upon application.

Portobello Road ball saga update.

It didn't take very long at all. Within days of the installation of the spherical granite shin barkers on Tavistock Square/Portobello Road vandals had managed to break one off. We found it like this late on Saturday night and with the help of a local restaurateur managed to pop it back in its socket. What on earth went through the mind of the planner who allowed these things to be placed here.

Madness.

The pelican on All Saints Road is reopening.

After quite a while closed the often troubled Pelican is being refurbished. Builders are gutting the place (not a cheap makeover) in preparation for opening in a couple of months time. Let's hope it will becomee a decent pub/bar rather than yet another pizza joint!

Balls on Portobello Road, crack, curling and boredom.

The latest addition to the Tavistock Square refurbishment is a collection of balls. Granite balls to be precise. Quite why they are there I do not know, not high enough to sit on yet low enough to bark a shin on on dark nights. Perhaps they are humorous representations of the crack rocks popular among some elements of the local community. They are balls anyway.

On close inspection I suspect that the balls are of  a granite found only on Ailsa Craig; an island in the Forth of Clyde on the West coast of Scotland. A granite of such fine quality that it is used in the manufacture of curling stones; curling being the 'sport' which imaginatively combines ice, granite, RAF roundels and brooms. It is called 'curling' as a result of its toe curlingly boring nature. Balls!

Portobello Man: The Bevis Frond.

The half million pound loo seat on Portobello Road.

OK. they have nearly finished tarting up Tavistock Square on Portobello. Half a million has been spent on it; granite from China being a fairly hefty chunk of the cost! Who on earth specified chinese rock? what kind of bung was involved? We should be told.

What's the big difference?

The difference is a fancy circular seat next to the Auto piss machine; just the place to sit and eat your newly purchased, wood-fired cheese on toast, serenaded by the farts and splashes of thousands of tourists.

What on earth went through the planners heads here. There is more than one meaning to 'Public Waste'.